So the Texas State Railroad's collection of grounded interurban freight equipment has tripled, with the two native freight trailers joining the ex-C&LE freight motor that arrived in Rusk around the late 1990s as well. It's a bit of an odd collection for a steam tourist line but while the cars are all used for storage, they're also being taken care of and do qualify as "preserved" by my standards. Hopefully they are kept up going forward. This also means that there are 10 known pieces of preserved Texas Electric equipment in all: two locomotives (the only complete examples), three passenger cars, two freight motors, and three freight trailers.
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
Two freight trailers added to PNAERC roster
So here's another piece of good news: I've managed to identify a pair of cars that have long been on my list of "mystery cars." They're both interurban freight trailers from the Texas Electric that are on the grounds of the Texas State Railroad in Rusk. With help from TE expert John Myers they've been identified as cars 605 and 613 and added to the PNAERC list.
Both have intriguing histories. They both started life as handsome railroad-roof Texas Traction interurban coaches built by St. Louis Car Company in 1907; car 605 was originally TT 6 and 613 was originally TT 7 (a photo of identical car 8 is here). After a few years car 6 was rebuilt by TT into a freight motor and renumbered 554; around the same time car 7 was rebuilt from a straight coach into a coach-RPO car and renumbered 356. TT was incorporated into Texas Electric in 1916 and both 356 and 554 initially kept their numbers. Car 554 was rebuilt in 1918 into its current form as an unpowered interurban freight trailer and renumbered to 605; seven years later, in 1925, car 356 was also rebuilt as a freight trailer. Both would have been retired when TE quit in 1949 and both were retrieved and moved to Rusk in 1996, at the same time freight motor 501 and freight trailer 608 were moved to Van Alstyne and put on display there. Click here for a photo of 605 and click here for a photo of 613.
So the Texas State Railroad's collection of grounded interurban freight equipment has tripled, with the two native freight trailers joining the ex-C&LE freight motor that arrived in Rusk around the late 1990s as well. It's a bit of an odd collection for a steam tourist line but while the cars are all used for storage, they're also being taken care of and do qualify as "preserved" by my standards. Hopefully they are kept up going forward. This also means that there are 10 known pieces of preserved Texas Electric equipment in all: two locomotives (the only complete examples), three passenger cars, two freight motors, and three freight trailers.
So the Texas State Railroad's collection of grounded interurban freight equipment has tripled, with the two native freight trailers joining the ex-C&LE freight motor that arrived in Rusk around the late 1990s as well. It's a bit of an odd collection for a steam tourist line but while the cars are all used for storage, they're also being taken care of and do qualify as "preserved" by my standards. Hopefully they are kept up going forward. This also means that there are 10 known pieces of preserved Texas Electric equipment in all: two locomotives (the only complete examples), three passenger cars, two freight motors, and three freight trailers.
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Texas Electric box motor number 507 was recently purchased by the city of Waxahachie TX and is under restoration or will be restored for display. John Myers is involved with it. It was on a farm in Ellis County for years under a shed roof.
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Phil, thanks for the information! That's great to hear that another box motor is being preserved and that there are plans to restore it.
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